Clarke and O’Connor’s SXSW Diary – day three
DDB Sydney’s Creative Technology Director Shaun O’Connor and Digital Creative Director David Clarke are covering SXSW exclusively for Campaign Brief until March 17.
Happy Accidents.
As you’d expect there’ve been sessions about wearables (the new mobile) and the Internet of Things, left, right and center at SXSW. But with some popular sessions filling up well in advance, last-minute improv leads to fun discoveries.
Like today, as I was a half-city from the session I wanted and landed in a talk by the Smithsonian. Just beyond the sea of ‘Maker Folk’, their talk about ‘Reality Computing’ was one of the first great applications of 3D scanning and printing I’ve seen in good while.
In a nutshell, three guys are creating impossibly detailed accurate scans of museum artifacts, and are putting them online for free. And the applications are far more interesting than hobby-printing priceless plastic trinkets. These ~20GB digital models have more appreciable detail, are indestructible, and can be studied with reckless abandon. Some schools are already getting behind it, and the opportunities for contextual storytelling are immense.
I also found myself in the right place at the right time for Al Gore’s keynote; a talk about a big data with National Geographic; and would have seen the Grumpy Cat had I’ve lined up for an hour outside Haus of Bacon.
You can debate the value of brand presence at the festival, but with over 50 sessions running at any time content is still king here at SXSW.
– David Clarke
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